The Cellar

The doll was only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The farther she crept along the cellar, the more items she found. Broken cribs, tattered mobiles, and splintered bassinettes lay stacked in heaps, enough for at least two-dozen babies. From the brittleness of the materials, she guessed they must have been down in the cellar for several years at least.

The smell of decay increased until her eyes watered. She crept around a stack of buggies to find a cabinet lined with clay jars. She opened one to find it filled with a cream-colored sludge that made her gag. She forced herself to jab a finger into the pot to taste the goo. Baby formula, she thought. Formula long since expired.

She put the jar back on the shelf and opened a wooden box next to the cabinet. Inside she found neat stacks of tiny white nightgowns. A tag on the first nightgown read, 'Prudence Elizabeth Gooddell.' She found another for 'Helena Marie Bloom' and 'Phyllis Jane Baker.' These are their baby clothes, she thought. Yet from the spotlessness of the fabric, they didn't appear to have ever been worn. She shoved Prudence's nightgown into her apron pocket.

Her head still spinning from this discovery, Samantha didn't see the trunk until she tripped over it. She tumbled forward, landing headfirst in the crate of baby clothes. She sat up and then crawled back over to the trunk to examine it.